A primary teacher and their sporadic views on technology in education, the world and life in general.

19 entries from April 2008

- 20,100 more teachers and support staff than 12 months ago -- Year-on-year rises in teachers per pupil in primary and secondary schools -- Average class sizes fall -

Schools
Minister Jim Knight has welcomed new figures showing the overall school
workforce still growing at its highest ever level and pupil-teacher
ratio continuing to improve.

Provisional statistics published
today showed that the overall school workforce has grown by 20,100 over
the last 12 months to 767,600 – the biggest year-on-year growth since
2005, giving schools the highest number of teachers for a generation.

Interesting use of language to describe staff in this.

"school WORKFORCE still growing"

changes into

"highest numbers of TEACHERS for a generation"

Sorry to rain on their parade, but a workforce consists of more than just teachers, and the truth is that schools do not have more teachers, they have more support staff, more office staff, more after school club staff, more breakfast club staff. That's the workforce, and that's the increase.

Think back a week to before the NUT strike day. Jim Knight, Schools minister, is quoted as saying;

"I think parents are bewildered because they hear that the average teacher earns about £34,000"

Quite an interesting statement, as the maximum salary for a teacher on UPS3 is currently £34,281.00. We teachers teach averages, and we know that if there are newly qualifieds earning much less than £34k, then some teachers must be doing the impossible and earning much, much more. Surely the average should be lower - somewhere between £20k and £34k. £27k maybe?

Well, it's both a yes and no. Yes, the average salary will be £34,000 when you factor into the calculations the salary of headteachers and deputies, but No it would not be if you only count teachers pay (and remember his quote said "average teacher").

Government spin to make it sound like teachers are better off than they are? You decide!

Well, my computer has died; the motherboard has given up the ghost. This has, obviously, left me with a few headaches (but not has many as it would have several years ago). Thanks to the rise of Web2.0 I have been able to;

Set up IMAP mail folders on another temporary machine quickly, so that I can still access email (and in the process it means that I can quickly set up again on a new machine when I get it without losing any messages received in the meantime)

Continue accessing the school website, moderate comments and create pages as everything is held remotely by our hosts.

Continue to access the subscriber lists, newsletter facility, and database for another website I run as this too is held remotely at the website host

Unfortunately I am unable to;

Use dreamweaver (for building webpages / site), flash and other design software that ran on the old machine

Access old emails / files and folders on the old machine

However, the good news is that the old hard drive is still working, so can be fitted into a caddy and the files transferred across to a new machine once I get it. Then I will be able to reinstall all the software, and (hopefully) carry on as normal.

"Less than half of fathers regularly read bedtime stories to their children, research has suggested.

This is the first paragraph of an article on the BBC website entitled "Dads 'don't read bedtime stories'". I made sure that my daughter had a story every night when she was young. Now, she never stops reading and is busy writing her own.

At school I try and read to the class every day. It's essential, so at the moment we're reading Charlie Bone, by Jenny Nimmo, and also Smasher by Dick King Smith.

Since well before the public launch when I was lucky enough to be able to test the iPlayer in advance, I have loved the idea of it. Missed a great piece of TV, go to the computer and either download it or stream it for up to 7 days after broadcast. Keep it for a maximum of 30 days, but once viewed it then deletes itself after 7 days. Simple, effective, useful.

The only drawback to it has been the need to either sit on a hard chair in front of a PC watching, or sat on a settee staring at a small laptop screen. Not anymore! I'm pleased to see the BBC and Nintendo have reached a deal to put the iPlayer on the Wii as a channel.

So now I'll be able to sit on a comfy sofa and catch up on a big screen. As the fast show used to say "Brilliant!"

Oh related to that - ISPs are asking the BBC to fund network improvements because the iPlayers popularity is stretching resources. Are the ISPs also going to ask 4od, Joost, Sky anytime and the host of other streaming / catchup services out there too? Or is it just sour grapes that the beeb has hit on a winning idea?

The school website has had an experimental podcast on since July 2007. Two Y6 girls had been recording all the weeks news on my voice recorder, for me to then drop into an audacity template and save as an mp3. The file was hosted on the school website, but we had so much trouble getting iTunes to recognise the RSS feed for it.

Well, with the theft of my laptop, iPod and voice recorder everything ground to a halt just before Christmas, but we're off again now.

The school has now bought around two dozen voice recorders, and each class has nominated two "podporters" (class reporters) who will interview children and report the news from their class. The first episode is almost ready and goes out this Friday, so I 've been trying to find a suitable host on the web for the new podcasts. In the end I opted for Jellycast for two reasons;

1. they host the Ricky Gervais podcasts, so they are not likely to disappear suddenly with the audience he attracks

2. there are some other educational podcasts hosted by them, so they must be suitable for schools

You can see what podcasts we currently have available listed in their directory, and it should be growing soon. All our previous podcasts can be found on this page of the school website.

Tonight I was at my daughters secondary school to listen to the Head and Deputy emphasise how important the choices that the students have to make are. I sat through 35 minutes of them both standing in front of a Powerpoint slide show and reading out what was written on the screen. Arghhhh Death by powerpoint. I'd only talked about this the other day, and here was another example of it. They could have printed it out and given me the sheet to read in my own time, rather than make me sit and listen to them.

Anyway, with the Powerpoint torture over, it was time to go and discuss the actual content of the lessons that she might opt for. ICT was first. What would the course contain? Well, nothing had been finalised (new course content - still writing it!) but it seems that in Years 10 and 11 they'll be learning to use excel to make spreadsheets, publisher to make posters / adverts etc, and (wait for it) using video to make multimedia content. I don't want to sound smug but my juniors are doing this now. And as for the exam paper - the example I read had some classic questions "what does multimedia mean", "what is a flash stick used for". History seemed better than I remember it when I was at school, and her languages options (French and German) were OK too. So it seems sorted. All four options chosen. Hopefully.

I found a link tucked away at the bottom of the BBC's main news page with the words;

"Most Popular Now Traffic to this site is currently 7% above normal"

Clicking it opens a great piece of technology. Just watch the page for a few minutes and you'll see the most popular news stories start to swap places on the top10 board. Not only that but you can see which part of the world is accessing the site, and what the traffic load is.

Plus you can click the map and see the most popular stories and traffic load for continents around the world .